


god is a woman

by aizensosuke



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Epiphanies, Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash, Mild Gore, Multi, Protectiveness, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-08-20 03:12:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16547765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aizensosuke/pseuds/aizensosuke
Summary: loly's eyes are opened, changing her destiny and the fate of inoue orihime in las noches.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the arc where loly and menoly are jealous of orihime because they think aizen is in love with her fucking SUCKS and kubo should be sued for writing such awful characterization. so this is my interpretation of what should have happened because kubo might not love all of the ladies in bleach, but i sure do and will stop at nothing to give them better writing. also try to convince me the very clear arrancar girlfriends gave a shit about aizen being hot lmao.
> 
> starts loly/menoly + orihime and becomes loly/menoly/orihime. might be adding in violence warnings as time goes on because i'm sure there will eventually be some pretty nasty arrancar fights. lots of religious overtones and such because this is bleach naturally and it'll become more clear why in this first chapter.

When she can sit back and look at the situation she and her fellow Arrancar have found themselves entrenched in, Loly Aivirrne understands an intrinsic truth: Aizen Sosuke cares nothing for any of them. His Arrancar Army is full of expendable bodies, soldiers for him to exploit as he would, to use as servants and handmaidens without ever giving them the respect they should be owed for serving as the power he needs to accomplish his goals.

She feels betrayal. She feels loss. She has seen her own people struggle to achieve their current forms, the massive amount of power they have at their disposal, all to please a man, no, a  _ shinigami _ who has killed thousands of Hollows during the span of his life. Dully, she wonders who he must have been in his first life and if he was just as twisted and evil then, just as prone to twisting the truth of those around him to suit his own personal goals. She kneels at his feet with her hands clenched into fists at her back and dreams of dragging him down off of his throne, breaking him because she can and because he deserves no less from her people.

Taking this frustration out on Inoue Orihime, at the time, only seems fair.

Aizen has the human girl brought to him, dresses her up in Arrancar clothing and places her above all of them. A princess in an ivory tower whose friends fight against all of the odds to save her, friends who slay Loly’s people, who bloody them and beat them in order to reach her side. Maybe it is hardly fair, what she and Menoly do. The way they invade the one space Orihime can call her own in this hellish palace, this space so wide and expansive yet empty and cold. Loly is cruel to her, wounds her, never thinks twice about it.

_ Why does he treat you like an ounce of respect while he looks down his nose at the rest of us? _ The question rages in her mind and dances on her tongue but she swallows it down like so much bitter bile, fingers biting into Orihime’s delicate skin as she pitches her across the room. Her fingers crackle with energy, with the will to destroy everything around her.  _ Why do you get to be special when we’ve fought so hard just to be treated like house pets? _

When Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez finds them, his reaction is to be expected. Grimmjow sees everyone as below him as it is, wants to be a king sat atop a lofty throne even though he should be able to see with his own eyes that the human proverb is true after all. Loly can hardly remember where she heard it; it might have been from the lips of a human she stalked as a Hollow, or another Hollow she devoured when she was a Gillian. Hard to say one way or another when it comes right down to it, but the source does not matter. Only the words.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Grimmjow kills Menoly and that is, perhaps, the first regret Loly has had on this evening. It shocks her to her core, rips a cry from her lips even as she fruitlessly struggles to reach her friend, her lover, the only companion she has in this hell world Aizen has created just for them.  _ Not her. Anyone but her. Me, instead, but not her. _ Menoly never even wanted to do this, it was Loly’s idea. Menoly has always had trouble when it comes to saying no to her.

When Inoue Orihime approaches her, tearing herself away from Grimmjow and his demands, Loly is certain it’s to put her down. She would let her. Orihime  _ must _ be strong; Loly had heard the stories about how she restored Grimmjow’s arm and his Espada ranking, things that should have been beyond the capabilities of a normal human. No one should have that power. Not even Aizen can boast healing powers of a height so high.

She expects pain, and would have deserved it. Would have earned it. When Orihime kneels in front of her, her face scuffed and blotchy pink from their abuse, Loly expects death. She would welcome it, if only to return to Menoly’s side in whatever afterlife awaits them.

She does not expect warmth, golden light encasing her in a protective shield. The delicate warm tingling that dances along her leg when Orihime heals it.

Improbable. Impossible.

When Orihime kneels in front of Menoly’s destroyed corpse, Loly wants to beg her to leave well enough alone because healing is one thing, but death is another. She watches the golden shield encase her closest companion and all of her protests die on her tongue, her eyes widening as, slowly but steadily, Menoly’s body seems to reform. The pieces of her blasted away from the force of Grimmjow’s Cero restore themselves, her frame coming back into shape.

Loly notices other things, too. The soft sadness that lingers on Orihime’s soft features, in her dove grey eyes. The frown on her soft full lips. The way the golden light of her healing energy dances across her skin and raises golden highlights in the fall of her autumn fire hair— mussed, tangled from the fight she never raised a hand in. The pain she suffered in silence and without fail, stronger than Loly would have thought to give her credit for being.

For the first time, she  _ sees _ Inoue Orihime and it closes her throat and rips open her chest.

When Menoly awakens long after Orihime has gone, Loly’s back is pressed against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest and her gaze fixed on the ground. Darkness, and then light. Death, and then life. Orihime’s power and skill and the pureness of her heart etching impossible changes onto the world around her even though it should have been a feat too far above her head for her to reach. Stars distant in the sky, the moon hanging fat in the sky so far away from grasping fingers that stretch despite the distance.

Except Orihime can reach. Orihime can hold the moon cupped soft and silver in her palm, the stars resting on the tips of her fingers. Orihime is  _ not _ a normal human at all, and even Aizen Sosuke cannot bring back the dead.

“What happened?” Menoly asks her, coming to kneel at her side, hands coming to curl around her calves. Her expression is frightened, uncertain, concerned.

Loly takes a long time to respond to her, her hands trembling as she slowly raises her gaze from the floor to meet her partner’s eyes. “The girl,” she says, and the words roll off of her tongue slowly and clumsily. “She saved you. She healed you. I watched her do it.”

Menoly’s eyes widen at her, her mouth falling open. “Th-the Cero. She couldn’t have.”

“She did!” Loly is on her knees suddenly, hands gripping Menoly’s shoulders.  _ Warm. Alive. Here in front of me because of that girl. _ “I watched her do it. I… She healed me, too, she…”

The fact she almost lost Menoly crashes over her in that instance and she sobs, pressing her face against Menoly’s neck as she clings to her. Arms curl around her back, drawing her in closer, letting her soak in Menoly’s warmth, the strength of her limbs and the truth of her body. Loly’s hand fumbles against her chest until it finds the strong and slow beat of her heart, steady beneath her ribs. How quaint, that their Arrancar bodies have granted them human traits.

Menoly whispers to her, rubbing soothing circles into her back as she holds her, letting Loly cry out her fear and anguish on her shoulder. They’ve been kept here and used as soldiers and pets and not treated with any sort of kindness, any sort of awareness that they have feelings. Even a monster like Grimmjow doesn’t deserve to  _ die _ even if Loly told him he did. Even if, in her terror, she told him that Aizen should have killed him a long time ago.

None of them deserve to suffer that fate. None of them deserve to be blasted into so many frail and fragile pieces, left in a puddle of burnt flesh and blood on cold stone. Not even Grimmjow.

“I’m sorry.” Loly sniffles pitifully, wiping tears from beneath her eye. The other is nonexistent, her Hollow hole hidden by the remnant of her Hollow mask. “I couldn’t do anything to protect you.”

Menoly shakes her head, tilts Loly’s face up with two fingers cupped beneath her chin. “You shouldn’t have had to. I was trying to protect you. I was the one who failed.”

“We couldn’t have beaten him if we tried. An Espada. And destruction. He was too powerful for us.” Loly laughs at the thought, how Aizen has set his own careful hierarchy here to rule over. Pitting them against each other over such small matters, doling out favoritism so that the moment they have the chance to hurt one another, they strike as hard as they can. “She— Orihime, she healed me. She restored you. I watched her do it.”

When Menoly sits back on her heels, her expression is troubled. “Are— Are you sure she—”

Loly cuts her off and recounts to her the story, the way Orihime had neglected to heal her own wounds in favor of helping the two of them. How, even beaten down and injured and seeing the proof of Grimmjow’s power flexed so carelessly in front of her— it took so  _ little _ of him to destroy both of them— she stood against him. She pulled herself away from him. Loly has seen fearlessness to the point of stupidity before and she understands self-preservation better than most even if she had been lacking it when she came after Orihime in the first place, but it was to help them. She fought against Grimmjow to save their lives.

When she finishes the story, her arms are wrapped around herself, rubbing away the goosebumps in her arms from recounting the tale. Menoly stares at her, hands raised in the space between them, her eye wide and her mouth dropped open just enough to reveal a hint of tongue, a hint of teeth, and all of the shock such an expression can muster.

“She— No human can do that,” she says, and Loly nods because it’s true.

Just the same, Orihime had. Orihime did it right in front of her and the thought fills her body with an alien warmth, an alien insistence that she hardly understands. Everything in this palace is twisted and cold and broken, contorted to fit the shape of Aizen’s ideals and desires.

Except for her. Except for one fragile, impossibly strong human girl.

“She’s… She’s…” Menoly struggles for words and Loly lets her as she pushes herself to her feet, her steps sluggish as she retraces her path over and over through the rubble. The spot where Grimmjow had blasted Menoly with his Cero. The spot where she had been nearly crushed under the weight of his boot. The spot where she hovered over Orihime, terrorizing her. “I don’t even know. I don’t know what she is. Does Aizen-sama know about her powers?”

“Don’t call him that. He doesn’t deserve it.” Loly crouches in the rubble, picking up a piece of torn white fabric, rolling it between her fingers. She must have torn Orihime’s dress.

Menoly gapes at her when she turns to look at her once more, the fabric curled around her fingers. “How can you say that? Loly, I… What’s gotten into you?”

“Aizen is only utilizing what he thinks he can use to win this war he’s begun of his own selfish volition.” Loly laughs at the thought, that they’d ever trusted him or looked at him as anything other than a monster in deceptively soft and pretty skin. “He doesn’t care about us. He never will. He never could. How else could he have cut Grimmjow’s arm off so easily?”

“That’s… Tousen did that,” Menoly reminds her, as if the specifics have ever mattered.

Loly laughs at the thought; another shinigami placed in power over all of them alongside the fox-faced Ichimaru Gin. Three men who hold their lives in the palms of their hands, who crush them as they see fit, mangle and dismember them for punishment. Kill them outright, and isn’t Tousen keeping one of them as nothing more than a  _ pet _ now? Locked up with him.

“Does it matter?” she asks, and Menoly blinks at her. “Does it matter who did it? Aizen let it happen. He probably encouraged it. He let that man hurt one of us over something so small.”

Her hands are shaking, her knuckles bleached white as they curl into fists, and she strikes at a piece of stone on the floor, watches it crumble into pebbles from her own physical strength. So much greater than that of the mortal who watched her with fearful eyes but who never cried, who never begged her to stop. The mortal who was willing to accept her fate.

_ She probably wants to die trapped in this prison, feeling her friends die as they try to rescue her. _ Loly’s rage is kindled anew at the thought, Orihime left in her nice room to feel her friends slowly suffering just out of her reach, out of the reach of her healing energy. She could probably save all of them but she’s stuck here, helpless and alone.  _ Why did I attack her? What could it have done to fix this situation? She’s innocent. She never asked for any of this. _

When hands land carefully on her shoulders, only the knowledge that Menoly is the only one near her keeps her from lashing out in response. Her fingers are trembling and red with energy, and it would be oh so simple to blast the space around them with Ceros until she feels better.

“Something happened,” Menoly tells her, and Loly looks up at her and wonders what she means by that. “You’ve been thinking about this for a long time, I can tell. I thought… I thought you liked serving Aizen. I thought you were jealous of the girl. Isn’t that why we attacked her?”

“I’m an idiot.” Loly laughs at the thought and waves her hands when Menoly protests, not interested in soothing her own bruised ego at the moment. “I don’t care about serving that bastard. I don’t care about his feelings or his whims any longer. To care at all was stupid and short-sighted. But that girl…”

_ She saved your life. I watched her piece your body back together from nothingness. None of our kind have ever recovered from such a fate, not even with Szayelaporro’s technology to rely on. _

Menoly is patient with her, brushing a stray strand of hair off of her forehead. “What about her?”

There are no traces of the humans they used to be by the time they become Arrancar. The devouring of so many human souls and then Arrancar bodies, the merging and clashing of spirits inside of them mean that who they used to be dies away more and more each day until one of them takes control of the Gillian and rises from its depths. Everything is consumed, then, crushed and compressed until there is nothing left but who they are and who they stand as. Attacking smaller Hollows might result in saving their souls, but by the time they remove their masks, there is no one left but them. No trace of who they used to be.

Loly wonders, just the same. Wonders now as she feels the impossible twist and tug and  _ pull _ in her gut when she thinks of Orihime’s lovely faced, bruised and marred as she knelt and stood by them to save them and protect them from further pain. Arrancar hardly care about the afterlife, about higher powers and other planes of existence. All that matters is food and power and killing the shinigami foolish enough to stray too far into the territory of Hueco Mundo, their home.

The fervor that seizes her entire body and blooms hot and true beneath her ribs is foreign to her, and perhaps what she had felt when Aizen first came to all of them was like this. But merely a shadow, a flicker of an ideal that was quickly extinguished as Aizen proved himself to be unspeakably cruel over and over until there was nothing left of it.

But this is stronger and Loly thinks she could break her ribs, dig through the red meat of her heart and pull it out shining and whole in her palm. This feeling is powerful enough to take shape inside of her, cramming for space between her organs, something that no one could ignore even if they wanted to. And as she meets Menoly’s eye once more, it blooms over her like flower petals dripping from trees above, caressing her skin in small, phantom brushes.

Of course.  _ Of course. _ Her doubt and uncertainty in Aizen has been rewarded, and maybe… Maybe she failed the first time. Her first trial so utterly failed that no one would believe she deserves  _ anything _ for her efforts and her doubts, but there can be no doubt about this.

Aizen capturing Inoue Orihime was not by chance, nor a coincidence. Loly might not have believed in fate before Menoly— the Arrancar who filled the places in her soul where there was nothing, and she thinks her Hole might be filled by the other woman’s presence alone. But this… This is something else. Different, but just as great. Just as powerful and important.

They failed once. They will not fail again. She will ensure that much by her own will.

“That girl,” she says, gripping Menoly’s shoulders, leaning in close to her until the space between them is fraught with intense and nervous energy. “That girl is a goddess.”


	2. Chapter 2

If Inoue Orihime is a goddess, then Grimmjow Jaegerjaques is a devil.

The force of a Gran Rey Cero is powerful enough to eliminate almost anything in its path and the force with which Grimmjow fires it off should be enough to rip a hole in the fake blue sky Aizen Sosuke has implanted over Las Noches. Taking one at full force would be devastating, and Menoly thinks that she did not survive his normal Cero. His most powerful will kill her, incinerate her so suddenly she won’t even be able to feel the pain of its blast before everything is dark and nothingness once again. This time, she would die with Loly at her side.

When Ulquiorra Cifer believes their lie, it gives them time to find where Grimmjow has taken Orihime. Following Ulquiorra’s Sonido feels like a suicide attempt more than anything else. The fact he believed them at all surprises her, but Ulquiorra knows how afraid of him they are. He knows, better than most, that they quiver in his presence as anyone with a functioning brain would. He did not own the role of the Cuatro Espada by doing nothing more than appearing to be frightening; the way he nearly levels Grimmjow without having to try proves it.

Perhaps Grimmjow should be more frightening now. Certainly, Menoly feels nervous being so near his presence, but he’s too focused on Kurosaki Ichigo to notice her. He killed her. The thought keeps coming back to her no matter how desperately she tries to forget about it, the twisting reality of it in her gut making her feel ill. But the fervent glow in Loly’s eye is what pushes her forward. If the human woman is meant to have their protection, then they will give it to her. She saved Menoly’s life and healed the crippling agony Grimmjow forced upon Loly, and perhaps she should have  _ something _ for doing so much for them.

“He wouldn’t.” Loly’s voice quivers as Grimmjow builds up the store of power in his arm, something so fierce and awful and destructive that he shouldn’t be able to do it so easily. Sometimes, it is difficult to remember that Grimmjow is only the Sexta. “Aizen-sama wants her protected. He wouldn’t risk her life like this. He wouldn’t—”

“He’s going to.” Menoly’s mouth feels dry and her hands quiver with the thought of being on the receiving end of such a powerful blast. “She’s only human. She can’t survive that.”

Pure fury rips across Loly’s face violently, contorting her features as she launches herself from the shadows cast by Aizen’s fake sun. “I won’t let him do this. I won’t let him hurt her!”

The irony of the statement is not lost on Menoly, who grasps blindly for her partner’s arm. “Stop! If I couldn’t take a Cero, we can’t shield her from this. We aren’t strong enough.”

“I don’t care.” Loly looks at her and her expression is torn between anger and terror, her limbs trembling with the wild energy that Grimmjow’s reiatsu spills into the air around them. “We have to try. We have to try or he’s going to kill her and I  _ will not allow it. _ ”

Menoly swallows hard and nods, and they Sonido to the spot directly in front of Orihime.

She has just a moment to think that Orihime looks lovely bathed in sunlight, even as fake as it may be. And then the world in front of them turns blue and she thinks that even if they failed, at least they failed trying to do something right. Trying to do something for someone else.

Menoly braces herself for death, and then death never comes.

It takes her a moment to realize the human standing in front of her— the Shinigami— has blocked the Gran Rey Cero. The thought is impossible to process; the air around them is still thick with reiatsu and warped, proof that Grimmjow has gone too far once again. That his punishment will be great. But the Shinigami remains poised, his sword— the blade as black as blood on the sands of Hueco Mundo— raised where he blocked it.

She hears Orihime gasp behind her and twists her head to look back, reading the surprise in those deep grey eyes as they meet her own. “Inoue-san, are you well?”

“I…” Orihime wavers on her knees and Menoly thinks the impact must have been felt even if the attack itself did not harm her. “What are you doing here?”

“Check on her,” Loly snaps, her eyes focused forward on the Shinigami’s back.

For a breath, Menoly hesitates. Then she steps forward, rapidly closing the distance between her and Orihime, taking the young woman by her elbows to keep her on her feet. “Are you harmed? We got here as quickly as we could. None of that struck you?”

“No.” Orihime blinks up at her and wavers once more, and Menoly tightens her grip, careful not to do it so much that she risks harming her.

“What are you doing here?” The voice that comes from the Shinigami sends a shiver of fear down Menoly’s spine, but she ignores it. She doesn’t have time to pay attention to him.

But there is something wrong in his voice. Something that could never be mistaken for human.

“Protecting her.” Loly’s voice comes out in a snarl and Menoly twists her head to look at her, see the way her muscles have tensed beneath her skin. A wild animal prepared to pounce even if the predator in front of her is more powerful than she is. “We’re here to keep her safe.”

Orihime gasps and Menoly shields her when she sees the mask stretched across his features, hiding his face from view. White and red and black but so distinctly Hollow, so distinctly true to what she sees among her brethren that it sends a ripple of fear through her body. Since when did Shinigami learn how to manifest the power of a Hollow in order to battle? Since when did a Shinigami gain the eyes of a Hollow to become more powerful?

This Shinigami is a monster. He feels like a threat, something to protect Orihime from.

He stares Loly down for a long moment before he turns his back to her. Marking her as not a threat to handle. “If you hurt her, I will cut you down. Make no mistake.”

“Do your part and fight that fucking bastard so I don’t  _ have _ to protect her,” Loly says, and the Shinigami’s shoulders jump in what sounds like a chuckle.

“I don’t understand. I thought… I thought…” Orihime bites her lip and Menoly, admittedly, wishes she was better at knowing what to do. All she can do now is step closer to her, shielding her the best she can with her body while Loly stands between them, Grimmjow, and the Shinigami. “Kurosaki-kun… Please be careful… He’s— He’s—-”

The Shinigami— Kurosaki— raises a hand. “I know, Inoue. I know how strong he is.”

“You don’t,” Loly protests, and then Menoly feels it. She  _ hears _ it.

_ Grind, Pantera! _

“Create a Santen Kesshun around yourself and Nel, Inoue. Don’t let it down for anything.” Kurosaki’s grip tightens on his blade; Menoly can see his knuckles bleach as white as the Hollow mask on his face. “You two, protect them. Don’t let Grimmjow get near them.”

“We won’t,” Menoly tells him, and she means it more than she’s ever meant anything before.

It takes true effort to peel her hands from Orihime’s arm, placing distance between the two of them so she can create her shield; she comes to stand at Loly’s side instead, her fingers crackling with reiatsu. She wants to fire off a Cero at Grimmjow to get him back for what he did to her but she knows it will do her no good, not now. Not like this. Even if Kurosaki beat Grimmjow down until he was bloody and broken, his power level is simply too high.

And in his Resurreccion, Grimmjow’s power only grows to a frightening crescendo of strength.

Menoly has only seen it once and she considers herself lucky to have not been on the receiving end of it, the wild and beast-like creature that rises from Grimmjow’s skin and contorts his body, twisting white armor over his skin, his hands and feet bearing vicious black claws that can rend flesh from the bone. He’d used it once hunting just for the fun of it, just to show off for Aizen; the speed and grace of it was frightening. More often than not, Menoly thinks of him as nothing more than a monster, a predator searching for prey to devour between his bloody jaws.

Pantera is just that. Nothing more than an excuse for Grimmjow to become a predator too strong and frightening for anyone to take down without being willing to die in order to do so. Only the Espada positioned above him have ever been a true threat to him.

When he rises out of the dust with a roar, Menoly feels her knees knock together. Next to her, Loly winces and her shoulders curl in on themselves for just a moment before she forces herself to stand straight once more. Dust flies into their eyes and Menoly can feel hers watering but she only blinks it away, not willing to take her eyes off of the battle in front of them.

Even if it kills her, she promised to protect Orihime. She will do that now no matter what it takes. She faced death once before and went down without a fight. No more. Never again.

“He’s not normal.” Loly’s eye tracks Grimmjow’s movement with startling perception, her reiatsu sparking in the air around her with a desperation that Menoly can feel thrumming through her own veins. “Even for an Espada. There’s something wrong with him.”

“Don’t let him get close to her. He’s not even paying attention anymore.” Too focused on the hunt, on the kill. “If he gets too close to her he’s going to—”

He must not fear Aizen’s wrath any longer, because Grimmjow aims for Orihime and the child Arrancar directly. It would guarantee his death, and he does it anyway.

_ So be it, _ Menoly thinks, and she throws herself forward to become a shield as specified.

The bullets of reiatsu punch through her skin and knock the breath from her lungs; Loly swears next to her as she catches the remainder of them, blood dripping down her skin, from the corner of her lips. It  _ hurts _ but Menoly focuses her reiatsu on the bullets, pushing them out of her skin, kicking them away with a foot. That movement hurts. Certainly, Grimmjow is not the Sexta Espada for no reason. She never thought he would do something so reckless, so stupid.

“Are you okay?” Orihime’s voice quivers and Menoly realizes she’s not afraid. Not of the attack, not of Grimmjow. She’s afraid  _ for them, _ and now that. That is something to think about.

_ But she saved us. After we hurt her, she saved us. After we threatened to kill her, she saved us. After we wounded her, she saved us. And now she’s upset to watch us suffer in her defense. _

“It’s just a scratch.” Far worse than that, actually. If they don’t have time to properly heal from this assault, Menoly doesn’t foresee them making it much farther than this. They’re lucky Grimmjow was aiming for Orihime and not them because he would have killed them.

Kurosaki hovers in the air before them, his golden eyes focused on them, darting between the two of them. “Are you all right?” he asks, and his voice is wrong. The voice of a Hollow.

“We’re fine.” Loly spits out a mouthful of blood and smiles up at him with red-stained teeth. “ _ Kill _ him, Kurosaki, or he’s going to kill you. Stop hesitating and end him!”

Loly is right. If he lets Grimmjow live, then Grimmjow will make sure that he regrets it.

“You two never learn your place, do you?” Grimmjow’s voice is directed at them and Menoly feels that twist of terror in her gut at the sound of his voice, the crushing power of his reiatsu even though it isn’t directed at her. “Kurosaki Ichigo,  _ look at me!” _

“You’re bleeding!” That warm golden light seems to extend; Menoly can feel it lapping against her back, the brush of it against her skin already soothing the pain in her back.

“Stop!” She takes a step away from it even though she needs the help right now, even though the lack of it might end up killing her. But Orihime is in danger, and she doesn’t even realize it. “I know you’re worried about us but you can’t do this. We have to keep you safe.”

“I’m not letting Grimmjow hurt you.” Loly’s voice is primal, deep, rumbling up from somewhere in her chest and spilling through her body in a rough reddish glow.

Menoly rarely sees the reiatsu of a lesser Arrancar taking any kind of physical shape like this.

Orihime’s breath catches when she inhales and Menoly chances a glance back at her, can see the anguish written on her beautiful face even through the haze of the shield between her and them. She wants to help. Helping is what she’s best at, what she wants to do; everything she is feeling is telegraphed in her expression right now. She must not be good at hiding her emotions, or has never had the need to. In any case, Menoly feels for her. This must be horrifying. Watching someone crumple beneath the pressure of Grimmjow’s attacks while two strangers try to keep her safe. Two strangers who maimed her out of something as simple as jealous rage.

Maybe it would be fair if they died here. Protecting Orihime from Grimmjow, when he had to beat them down to protect her from them. Maybe that would make everything fair and equal.

Orihime whimpers and the sound rips at Menoly’s heart, and the golden aura is there again, wrapping around her like a living, breathing creature. “I want to help you. You shouldn’t have to die to protect me. Please let me help you.  _ Please. _ ”

Out of the corner of her eye, Menoly can see the same aura curling its way around Loly. Orihime doing her best to help both of them, even now when putting herself at further risk could result in her death. Even now when she knows how fearsome they can be in their anger.

“You shouldn’t,” Loly tells her, but she doesn’t fight it, her head bowing beneath the pressure of Orihime’s gentle power. “Orihime, you  _ shouldn’t. _ You need to focus on your shield.”

Splitting her power in two different directions is going to make it harder for her to protect herself and the girl and still she reaches out to them, offering them a reprieve from their suffering that neither of them has earned yet. They haven’t even had the time to tell her they’re sorry.

“I can do both.” Orihime’s voice is soft and insistent and that healing aura sinks into Menoly’s body, a warm and relaxing weight that relaxes her muscles and eases the pain away. “I can do both. Please trust me. I can heal you both, it’s okay. I can do both at the same time.”

“Don’t strain yourself,” Menoly warns. Orihime must be exhausted. She couldn’t have slept since the fight and Grimmjow hauled her off not long after. And then that terrible, dark, twisting power.

The power of the Shinigami with the Hollow mask struggling to keep up with Grimmjow.

“I won’t.” Orihime can’t touch them from here but it still feels like her hand is resting on Menoly’s shoulder, a reassuring weight, a promise that she won’t harm herself or drain her own power to save them.  _ Again. _ “Kurosaki-kun… What is he? What is that mask?”

Loly presses her lips together and lowers her head for just a moment before she raises it once more, her gaze fixed on Kurosaki. “It’s a Hollow mask. He’s fighting Grimmjow with the power of an Espada. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But he is. He’s…”

_ A monster, _ Menoly thinks, but doesn’t say aloud. She can’t bring herself to do that.

When she looks behind her just the same, the agony on Orihime’s face crushes her heart, threatens to undo her self-control and send her after Grimmjow herself if only to bring this battle to an end. She can’t imagine what Orihime must be thinking right now but she can read the anguish on her lovely face, the way it crumples as she embraces herself, as if trying to comfort herself. And so Menoly reaches out to her, resting her hand against the shield.

It’s all she can think to do. Words fail her. The Arrancar child— Nel— is the one who speaks, the one who brings the light back into Orihime’s eyes once more. It’s enough. And when Orihime looks at her, all Menoly can do is nod to her. To reassure her. There are bloodstains and tears in her clothes from Grimmjow’s attack and the shadow of death feels ready to seize her once more every time she takes a breath, but she can do this for Inoue Orihime.

It’s the least she can do for the goddess who healed the only other being that she has ever loved. The woman who brought her back from the shadows, impossibly. Miraculously.

She weeps when she screams for Kurosaki not to die. Tears break from her pale grey eyes and spill down her cheeks one after another, like every emotion that has been beaten into her heart is escaping the best they can. And Menoly nods to her, stands between her and Loly and the threat below them, the clashing of blades and blood.

If this is all she can do for Inoue Orihime, then she will do it to the best of her ability.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon? completely smashed and destroyed for the sake of this ot3.


End file.
